I’ve been putting off posting about last weekend’s festivities.  On Saturday, we went to the annual Rancho Carrillo Hooligan.  While the petting zoo, frog jumping, chicken poo bingo, and BBQ beef sandwiches were still in top form, I thought I’d show you a big change from last year to this year.

Last year:

This year:

Besides the obvious change in weather (it was so hot this year!) and subsequent poor lighting.
What happened to my sweet little baby?

Last year:

This year:

I know there’s no going back to those sweet baby days and I can’t imagine trying to do what I try to do with an infant again.  But she was so cuddly!  Ah well. I may as well enjoy her cuteness this year.  Next hooligan, she’ll change again.

Also- don’t forget to visit my first ever book giveaway.  Click Here to be a smarty pants and enter for a chance to win a great book.

I know she’s a little young for contemporary potty training, but I would really, really like Audrey to be done with diapers during the day by the time she’s two.  Too much to ask?  Maybe.  While I’m still on the fence about switching to cloth diapers to help her, ahem, notice what’s going on down there, I thought I’d share a couple of songs I overheard from our friend Jennifer B.

There was a girl named Audrey Lee
Went potty in the toilet
P-O-T-T-Y, P-O-T-T-Y, P-O-T-T-Y
Go potty in the toilet

and my favorite

Twinkle, twinkle little pee
Won’t you please come out of me
In the potty you must go
Yes, it’s time for me to go
Twinkle, twinkle little pee
Won’t you please come out of me

We’ve had a few successes, but consistency is the key, right?

Do you have a potty song?  Trick?  Anything you’d like to share?

Also- don’t forget to visit my first ever book giveaway.  Click Here to be a smarty pants and enter for a chance to win a great book.

This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as an entry for a contest sponsored by Bush’s Beans.

In the Roomba v. Dyson court case, I don’t know which one I would root for.  I love them both so much.

Roomba- It’s a robot!  Do you realize my daughter won’t remember a time in her life before robots did chores?  I can’t get over how much cooler that is than her not remembering a time before the Internet or DVD players or the Wii.

Dyson-  This yellow giant cleans everything. So well.  Roomba isn’t perfect.  Dyson will always be my first love.

Both of these lovely vacuums were birthday presents (different years) from either my mom or my grandmother-in-law.  Roomba makes it possible for us to not totally lose it when Hurricane Audrey has struck once again and there are Cheerio crumbs, bits of cheese and crayon shavings blocking the nearest exit route.  Dyson and I get to spend less time together, but it’s the kind of quality time that leaves me knowing I could walk upstairs and see neat little vacuum rows.

I know I COULD live without this beautiful pair, but I wouldn’t want to.

This post was made possible by my mom taking Audrey to the ranch for a WHOLE day and was sponsored by Yoplait and PBN.

It’s all on our counter.

The ants are back again.  About a month ago, I was tired of little black sweet ants invading my kitchen sink everytime I forgot to do the dishes.  Since that meant that every morning I woke up to a sea of ant bodies rolling all over the kitchen, my husband was kind enough to call out an exterminator.

The guy was great but not quite great enough.  You see, we live in a townhome and share a wall with our neighbors.  That wall happens to be the one with the cabinets that store all of our dried goods.

A week or two ago, we had our first ant invastion.  They bypassed all of our carefully sprayed outlets, walls, and general ant throughougfares and made their way in through the shared wall.  The pantry got a necessary clean out and I thought we were safe.

Wrong.  Right in the middle of the great garage reoraganize of ‘08, the ants decided to come back in full force.  The last of the peanutbutter crackers? Swarmed. The vanilla granola?  Moving on its own. My honey roasted peanuts? Oh so icky.

I was able to  salvage almost anything individually packaged or unopened.  Basically that meant the fruit snacks, canned soup and anything unopened is left sitting on our counter.

Tomorrow, I’m doing the weekly grocery shop.  On the list–lots of ziploc baggies and individually packaged snackies.  I know it’s not the most environmentally friendly option, but I’m tired of wasting food to fill ant stomachs.

Any suggestions for ant-proofing my cupboards would be greatly appriciated.  I am so done with summer!

This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as an entry for a contest sponsored by Brothers-All-Natural.

I have this love/hate relationship with caffeine.  Love it–morning cup of coffee.  Need it–afternoon iced coffee while the toddler plays in the fountain because I’m so done with summer.  Hate it–1 am this morning when I can’t sleep because I had that 3pm coffee.

Really HATE it– 4:30 am when Audrey woke up screaming and would not go back to sleep.  Was it teeth?  A bad dream?  Just beeing stubborn? I have absolutely no idea.

Every time I think I have things mildly under control I realize how poorly I operate in a sleep deprived state.

I should be brilliant for class tonight.  We’re discussing Samuel Beckett’s short plays that don’t make any sense on a good day.  Yay for absurdism.

Remember how I was all worried that I’d committed some ethical sin by signing up for that free trial to Amazon Prime?  I played right into their marketing hands.  While I did not renew my free trial, I bought almost all of my school books (did I mention I started grad school last week? No? I did.) through Amazon and a few extra goodies.  I even let my Barnes and Noble membership lapse while I enjoyed free 2 day shipping a la Amazon and got great discounts on not quite textbooks from all of their used affiliates.

I liked my Amazon Prime so much, I’ve put my first commerical button on the sidebar.  I’m not so quick with the web editing stuff — I’ve meant to add more links, fancy up the site, make sure there are links to my portfolio, but it’s slow, slow work.  Click the link in the sidebar and get a free Amazon Prime trial.  If you’re afraid of getting suckered, it’s really, really easy to make sure that your credit carn never gets charged if you don’t want to autorenew.  Just go to your account, click on “Prime” and turn off renew.

But you know, I might just get the service.  When you count the gas I wasted driving to a Borders that was supposed to have an additional book I needed for Thursday and then the time it will waste to go all the way to Fullerton early so I can read one measly play before class–I think it might be worth that annual fee for free, fast shipping.

I’m the guest blogger over at Secret Agent Josephine today. She’s on vacay until September 15 and I’m stoked to get a chance to contribute to her wonderful blog.

I realized all of Audrey’s favorite things start with the letter B.  Ball, Birthday, Bear, Bunny–this may explain a little of the previous post.

Anyone want yellow zucchini? Our freezer, counter and backyard overfloweth.

We went to Disneyland last night.  If you eat at the French Quarter restaurant that is closest to Pirates of the Caribbean (of course, I don’t know the name) the chocolate crepe souffle is just a crepe with brownie batter in the middle.  If you make the mistake of asking your waitress how a crepe can also be a souffle and she lies and says it puffs so you order it anyway, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This morning, there’s a thick marine layer and I feel autumn is just around the corner. I made loads of zucchini bread two nights ago (vegan and non-vegan batches with great success, btw.)  There’s not enough to last us through Nativity, but the dinosaur squash plant is going strong.  And the tomatoes are just starting to turn red.  We’re about to be overwhelmed by our teeny, tiny garden.

And it don’t hurt!

Now when Audrey stands at our closed sliding door to the patio, she points and says, “dirty?”

She wants to get dirty.  I love that.  I think.

I’ve been reading the Money Saving Mom blog off and on for a couple of months now, and am playing along with the CVS “game” a little here and there. I only get one paper’s worth of coupons and our local stores always seem to be out of the best deals, but it’s saved us some money.

Today I saw this post. It instructed readers how to sign up for an Amazon Prime free trial, promptly cancel and still get $10 credit towards your next purchase. I immediately followed the steps, ordered a cheesy fantasy novel for $7.99 and didn’t pay a dime. It should show up by Thursday. As soon as I got the order confirmation, I was hit by this question:

Did I just steal a book?

The part of me that did the ordering in the first place says, technically, no. That $10 in credit was part of their marketing budget. The author and publisher will still get paid.

But I have no intention of renewing the $79 per year Amazon Prime service. It enables you to get free 2 day shipping–not really worth it when I order 5 times a year. When I followed the directions to get my free $10, I knew that I was not who the marketing campaign was targeting, I was just taking advantage of a large corporation’s advertising efforts.

Not to sound too high and righteous; advertising efforts take advantage of me every day, so maybe I was due. I didn’t steal the book in the literal sense of the word, but I’m still not happy about the whole process.

I tried to leave a comment of the blog, but it either fell victim to cyberspace glitches or moderation. As many of us try to cut back in a tough economy, I’m wondering where you’re going to draw the line. For me, it’s no more freebies when I’m not genuinely interested in the service or product. There may be some other things to consider, but it’s a start.

I’m not saying that Amazon needs my $7.99. But they do need our 7.99. When I was a teenager, my dad showed me how getting a free Starbucks from your friend who works there is tantamount to stealing. This situation is different because the program was authorized by someone higher than a 17 year-old’s desire to be liked, but I still feel the same icky.

So here’s my question to all of you, and I know you’re there because I see that hundreds of you stop by every week and say absolutely nothing.

What are you doing to save money (if anything?)

and

Did I steal this book????

There are LOTS of things swirling in my head right now that I’d like to put into a blog post. So many.

I want to write about

• How our list of prayers for the dead should really stop growing
• All of the preschools I’ve been visiting and how there should be one with this
• This Speaking of Faith interview with Barbara Kingsolver that I just re-listened to
  (and how it makes me want to grow more vegetables)
• My sinking suspicion that out life needs to slow down more–and I don’t think we’re that busy
• The latest book I’m afraid to read: Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life

But- I’m trying desperately to launch a new project out the door and know that I have to keep up here or I’ll lose all of you who never leave comments (bad you!) So, here’s a list of words another busy brain has been spouting:

Knows for sure:

Meow
Bath (this was her 1st one)
Mama
Dada
Nana
Papa
Auntie
Ball
Bear
Dog
Cat
Bubbles
Pool
Zebra
Bow (and she does!)
Mail
Peas
Please (sounds more like “eeeese”)
Elmo (Welmo)
did I mention Meow?
Hot
Brrrr (that would be cold)
NO!
No, mama.
Know? (with a raised shoulders and arms)
All Done
Blue (all colors are blue)
Noodle
Basa (that’d be kielbasa)
What’s That (was tat?)
More
Beach (sounds like bitch…)
Melon
Birthday Cake (birday cay)

There are some more words I’ve heard her mimic, but not say without prompting. Of course, I can’t remember most of them.

But my favorite thing I’ve heard come out of her mouth:

Renoir

I’m not joking. We look at impressionist paintings in a little book (in French!)

She’s a genius. Or at least a really cool sponge.